WESTERLO — William Bichteman says the small things — not just “the big-ticket items” — are important to a town.

He names several such things that have been good for Westerlo: a renewed summer youth program run with a county grant that was “well received” this year; being “blessed with a library that operates so efficiently and made improvements with grants”; and the revitalization with new leadership of “our museum that was dormant.”

“As a councilman, I can’t take credit for those things; it’s what we’ve done as a board and a town,” said Bichteman.

He is running for a second four-year term because, Bichteman said, “I think my services are needed. I think I help. I work well with the rest of the board and the supervisor.”

Retired from owning Trinity Construction, Bichteman has lived in Westerlo all his life and is a member of the local rod and gun club.

He said that goals for the town are “kind of a moving target.” He noted that there are limited funds to spend and a limited number of meetings. “You change gears as the funding becomes available,” he said.

On revaluation, Bichteman said, “It comes back to the constituency. Residents who have moved to town more recently would like reassessment as quickly as possible. Those who have lived in town a long time, do not.”

Bichteman also said, “Westerlo is attractive to people because of its open vistas and land. When you reassess, the cost becomes unbearable,” he said for people owning large tracts of open land. “That forces subdivisions,” he said.

Bichteman concluded of the current system in Westerlo, “Is it totally fair? Probably not … It’s hard to do that and preserve what residents value. The tax rate, although disproportionate at times, is still very low per capita.”

On town buildings,  Bichteman said, “You have to deal with what the voters want … We tried to make vast improvements at Town Hall; it was defeated.”

Now, he said, the town is “nibbling away at it,” removing asbestos, doing outside repairs, making improvements for the handicapped — all on a piecemeal basis as the town can afford it.

“The cost probably would have been less if we did it at one time. The voters spoke,” he said.

As for the highway garage, Bichteman said, the original plan to build a new one “overshot the mark” and was on a “grander scale” than needed. He went on, “We do have some issues with the current building. We put some Band-Aids on to get five or six more years out of it,” he said, naming roof and other repairs.

Bichteman also said there was a “potential to share space and maintenance” with the county.

On transparency, Bichteman said, “Some mistakes were made early on in planning for the town hall and highway garage. It wasn’t intentional,” he said of unadvertised meetings. “It was an impromptu thing to get together, not allowed by the Open Meetings Law. Once that was identified — we knew it ourselves — the policy was changed. We made a strict policy,” he said, of following the state law and not meeting without advanced notice to the public.

Bichteman also said that, in developing the second proposal to improve the town hall, “We put some interested citizens as part of the building committee.” He went on, “It’s impossible to have the entire town involved in any single meeting.”

He also said, “Constituents have to trust officials to make decisions … We vote in public,” he said of the town board. “We have a very active group that come to our board meetings and ask questions, and rightfully so. We try to answer every question.”

On the comprehensive plan, which Bichteman noted originated before his tenure on the board, he said, “Our comprehensive plan doesn’t go far enough.” He said of such plans, in general, “They become outdated as fast as you make them.”

Bichteman continued, “The current plan doesn’t identify several things that are needed to make our community stronger.”

Although several of these would be unpopular, he said, it is necessary to identify them. For instance, he said, a sewer district in the hamlet would be an unpopular project but it is needed  because of the proximity of wells and septic systems

Bichteman also said that a business corridor, along Route 32, is identified in the plan, but specifics are needed on how to expand it. That would help the tax base, he said.

On the budget, Bichteman said, the town board does meet state-set deadlines.

About the budget process, he said, it is hard to manage the town’s needs while staying under the state-set levy limit of 2 percent. He noted that most of the town’s revenues come from its share of the county’s sales tax, which is down this year.

“The water district still has a debt owed to the town,” Bichteman said.

The water system, serving the hamlet, went online in 2005 and serves about 80 households, he said.

“We’ve put the water district on sound footing,” he said. Costs have been cut in the heating and electric bills, which outweigh the water-treatment costs, he said. Also, a person has been hired to manage the system at a cost of about half the prior manger.

The district was set up before Bichteman was on the board. “The properties were gerrymandered to take people out of the district,” he said, leading to high rates for users; also, the bond payments increase every year and are now in the range of $260 annually for users.

“We’ve been able to nip away a little at a time,” Bichtemen said of the debt the district owes the town.